... The structural complexity of coral reef environments has a strong influence on the assemblage of reef-associated fishes and invertebrates. These unique ecosystems provide these reef-associated species with a broad range of potential habitats, which offer important resources such as food and shelter. The most studied habitat association on reefs is that of hard coral and fish, where hard coral cove ...

... Little is known about how plants protect flowers—their reproductive organs—against florivory. Additionally, the induced floral defense system has been examined in only a few species. We tested the inducibility of putative floral defenses and investigated the relationship between natural florivory and the floral defenses of 12 naturally growing plant species. The relationships between florivory and ...

... BACKGROUND: The diversity and evolutionary success of beetles (Coleoptera) are proposed to be related to the diversity of plants on which they feed. Indeed, the largest beetle suborder, Polyphaga, mostly includes plant eaters among its approximately 315,000 species. In particular, plants defend themselves with a diversity of specialized toxic chemicals. These may impose selective pressures that dr ...

... Bombardier beetles are famous for their unique ability to explosively discharge hot quinones from their pygidial glands when threatened. Here we provide the first detailed description of the ultrastructure of the defensive gland system of the genus Paussus, the most speciose genus in the ground beetle subfamily Paussinae. Paussine beetles are commonly known as “flanged bombardier beetles” due to t ...

... Tapinoma species, and more general dolichoderine ants, are able to produce a variety of volatile compounds they use as chemical defense, alarm, and communication pheromones. Among these, iridoids and volatile ketones are the predominant molecule classes produced by the anal glands of these ants. A recent taxonomic revision of the genus Tapinoma in Europe revealed that the supercolonial species Tap ...

... In the goldenrod Solidago altissima, most stems are erect, but “ducking” genotypes bend the tip of the apical stem downward for much of the growing season, and this morphology protects against at least two gall-forming herbivore species. Despite this advantage to defense, ducking remains a rare strategy in goldenrod, yet the costs that prevent ducking genotypes from outcompeting erect genotypes re ...

... Possessing toxins can contribute to an efficient defence against various threats in nature. However, we generally know little about the energy- and time-demands of developing toxicity in animals, which determines the efficiency of chemical defence and its trade-off with other risk-induced phenotypic responses. In this study we examined how immersion into norepinephrine solution inducing the releas ...

... Pollinators and herbivores can both affect the evolutionary diversification of plant reproductive traits. However, plant defences frequently alter antagonistic and mutualistic interactions, and therefore, variation in plant defences may alter patterns of herbivore‐ and pollinator‐mediated selection on plant traits. We tested this hypothesis by conducting a common garden field experiment using 50 c ...

... Many defended species use conspicuous visual warning signals to deter potential predators from attacking. Traditional theory holds that these signals should converge on similar forms, yet variation in visual traits and the levels of defensive chemicals is common, both within and between species. It is currently unclear how the strength of signals and potency of defences might be related: conflicti ...

... Recent work suggests that savanna woody plant species utilise two different strategies based on their defences against herbivory; a low nutrient/high chemical defence strategy and a nutrition paired with mostly architectural defences strategy. The concept that chemical and structural defences can augment each other and do not necessarily trade‐off has emanated from this work. In this study, we exa ...

... Although the production of phytohormones has been commonly associated with production of plant defence and stress-related traits, few studies have simultaneously investigated this phenomenon across several plant species that grow along large-scale ecological gradients. To address these knowledge gaps, we performed a common garden experiment with six Cardamine species, which collectively encompass ...

... Müllerian mimicry between chemically defended species arises from selection exerted by predators in which individuals benefit from higher survival when they share the same warning signal. However, despite sharing warning signals, co-mimetic species harbour a diversity of toxins at a range of different concentrations. This variation may affect the rate of predator avoidance learning and therefore t ...

... Platydemus manokwari de Beauchamp, 1963 is an invasive flatworm found on islands in the tropics, especially in the Pacific Ocean. It has been implicated in the decline of several snail populations, including the extinction of some Partula species. Its predatory behaviour was investigated to quantify predation rates and elucidate climatic influences. This laboratory study of the invasive flatworm c ...

... Populations of the invasive alga Sargassum muticum were sampled along a time-since-invasion (TSI) gradient to test the hypothesis that chemical defences would increase with TSI, and diversity of native mesoherbivores. Algal chemical defences, phlorotannins, were quantified as a proxy for top-down-pressure, and these were compared with both native enemy diversity and time-since-invasion at each of ...

... The parotoid gland of bufonids is characterized as a specialized integument region, formed by different gland types. The secretion elaborated by the largest glandular alveoli has been related to animal chemical defense and is constituted by granular protein content, associated with a basophilic and alcianophilic material with features of glycoconjugates. This study aimed to identify and characteri ...

... Conifers depend on complex defense systems against herbivores. Stone cells (SC) and oleoresin are physical and chemical defenses of Sitka spruce that have been separately studied in previous work. Weevil oviposit at the tip of the previous year's apical shoot (PYAS). We investigated interactions between weevil larvae and trees in controlled oviposition experiments with resistant (R) and susceptibl ...

... Aposematism is the combination of a primary signal with a secondary defence that predators must learn to associate with one another. However, variation in the level of defence, both within and between species, is very common. As secondary defences influence individual fitness, this variation in quality and quantity requires an evolutionary explanation, particularly as it may or may not correlate w ...

... Plant species are characterized by high adaptability to water level fluctuation in freshwater wetlands. Alteration in defence allocation patterns is one of the plant defence strategies in response to increasing water level gradients. Two dominant species, flood-sensitive species Deyeuxia angustifolia and flood-tolerant species Carex pseudocuraica, from freshwater marshes in the Sanjiang Plain were ...

... We examined the effects of light conditions on plant growth and production of defense compounds in the toxic species Datura inoxia and D. stramonium. Specifically, we investigated morphological and physiological traits, including the contents of nitrogen-based tropane alkaloids (atropine and scopolamine) as defense compounds, under three light conditions: 100%, 80%, and 50% of full sunlight. Both ...

... Plant secondary metabolites are a key defence against herbivores, and their evolutionary origin is likely from primary metabolites. Yet for this to occur, an intermediate step of overexpression of primary metabolites would need to confer some advantage to the plant. Here, we examine the evolution of overexpression of the essential amino acid, L‐tyrosine and its role as a defence against herbivores ...